


good grief’s the one that’s in your past

by exceed



Category: Follow the Leader (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Emotions, F/F, Gen, ft. my bad memory of exactly what happens in the eps, i'm getting the sibling interactions my heart desires, writing them with my own hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 09:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20672828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exceed/pseuds/exceed
Summary: "so. you and- and max.""what about us?"Merril has questions for Sol. It's easy to recognize that they're just ways for her to justify leaving them again.





	good grief’s the one that’s in your past

“so,” merril says, all awkward limbs and curious eyes and arched eyebrows when she looks at sol. there’s something that she wants to say, all curled up inside of her and ready to burst, and sol just looks at her and lets her stew there, downing another drink in the dimly lit monkey’s uncle.

she can feel all of the eyes on them; merril’s been showing up more often than not, lately, and they’ve all taken notice. sol wonders what rumors there are. she doesn’t exactly hide the fact that merril’s her stepsister, but she doesn’t advertise it, either. either way, the other folks tend to back off a bit when merril’s there. she’s glad for her sister’s sake, especially now that she’s a few too many drinks in and swaying towards her.

“so,” merril repeats after a minute or two, eyebrows inching higher on her face.

“so,” she eventually responds, fingers twitching to call over another drink. waits for merril to speak. it barely takes ten seconds, this time.

“you and- and max.”

“what about us?” the corner of sol’s lips twitches upwards in amusement as she watches her sister sigh, ask for another drink, and lean heavily on the bar from the stool next to hers. it’s funny to her how merril still tries to act like she knows what she’s doing with alcohol, even after so long. _she always was a lightweight,_ she thinks fondly. swirls what’s left of this new drink in her mouth, swallows, and sets the glass down. doesn’t ask for another just yet.

“you did- things? you two were, uh, together?” sol sees worry in her eyes at that and sighs internally, leans forward to place a hand on merril’s shoulder. there’s a fragility to merril that she only really sees now, something that’s been worn away over the years of fleeing her past, of being away from sol. she’s painfully transparent in that moment, and the sight wipes away all of sol’s plans for the night: drink until merril staggered off, keep drinking, get into a fight to expend all of her bottled up emotions. now it simply boiled down to:_ take care of merril._

sol slides out of her stool. the patrons of the monkey’s uncle collectively take a look at the two of them, see sol displaying some kind of strange emotion that they had never seen before, and she sees the exact moment that _hey, keep watching them_ switches to_ hey, that’s none of our business, sol doesn’t need to come over and beat us up._

“merril,” she murmurs. pained eyes lock with hers. “hey, merril. _mer-ril._ don’t get in your head about these things like ‘ya always do. was nothing serious, in the end. we’re better just as work associates than…” she waves a hand vaguely. “partner-partners. whatever the hell.”

merril sniffs, and it’s then that sol ushers her off of the chair, brings her close with an arm, and shuffles them out of the monkey’s uncle with a glare at the man who keeps her tab and wordless hums to her sister. she’s all teary-eyed, just like how she would go to her in the middle of the night before- well.

“where’re you staying?” she brushes some hair out of merril’s face, ignoring how they get attention as they walk along the corridors of the station almost-aimlessly. “those smugglers left the other day, i know. i could make some room in my-”

“stayin’ with max,” merril mutters, and doesn’t _that_ explain everything.

sol resists what feels like a loop of endless sighing and shrugs back on the mantle of older sister, treating her both with gentle care and a firm hand. “max cares about you,” she says eventually, steering them on a meandering path to max’s rooms. “you have something stronger with her, even if it’s…deteriorated.”

“but then i came in, and, and fucked up what you had, and-”

“you didn’t fuck anything up,” she says, realizing that she was maybe a bit harsher than she should have been a half-second later when merril bursts into alcohol-fueled tears. “fuck, merril, i’m just glad you’re here, max is glad you’re here, stop being an absolute dumbass.”

“but-”

“no buts, dammit, just-” sol groans and shakes her head. “max _has_ to have given you this talk already.”

merril’s guilty silence, punctuated with quiet sobs, told her all she needed to know.

“fuck,” sol says with passion, paging max with the vaguest alert possible and keeping merril moving. it was only another minute before they got to max’s quarters, sol turning the knob and finding it, curiously, unlocked- even if max wasn’t inside. it had to be to let merril come and go, she supposes, but- hm.

“sleep,” she tells merril, motioning to the bed and letting her go as she half-stumbled her own way to a rolling chair. “and we’re having a talk when you get up. don’t think you’re getting away from this one, pal. or that you’re going to go with me to the monkey’s uncle on a regular basis.”

merril lets out a vague whine in response. “but- i want to talk with you-”

“then ask instead of just showing up,” she suggests, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling. “you know, we could always go to the skatepark. or the arcade. anywhere fuckin’ else. i can get my own drinks. you don’t need that shit.”

“but-”

“come on. you get enough drinks in you and you just want to make yourself miserable and entertain- whatever the hell that gets you like this. you’re not making this a habit.”_ like i have,_ she nearly says, but instead she rolls over to max’s shitty mini-fridge and swipes a beer from it. it’s a welcome reprieve, at least for a few moments, from merril’s pitiful noises. “sleep.”

she eventually looks over and watches as merril falls into a restless sleep, a scrunched up face seemingly out of place on what sol knew of her.

well, it had been a number of years. it’s still hard for her to think of merril as having changed. sol takes another swig of the beer, tries not to think of how merril’s absence had affected her for so long, and drinks in the sight of her sister actually being there, only a few feet away.

if she wanted to, sol could just- touch her. remind herself that merril was there.

she entertains that thought for a few minutes before the door nearly slams open, revealing a very pissed max- a scowl on her face as she looks first to sol, sees the cold beer in one hand, and she just raises an eyebrow back and motions to where merril is sprawled out on the ratty bed.

max’s eyes soften at the sight of sol's sister. sol smiles like the cat that got the canary.

"you could have at least asked me to watch over her when you had things to do, valera,” she drawls, eyebrows shooting up in the sudden silence. “you leave her alone, and next thing you know she’s drinking herself to death over by my shithole of a bar.”

they both wince reflexively. “sorry,” sol mutters, eyes flickering back over to merril. “too soon.”

“too soon,” max agrees, voice rough as she slowly closes the door behind her. “what’s it now, hawke?”

“so, merril’s got it in her that we still have something. and that she doesn’t want to interrupt it.”

“fuck.”

sol finishes off the beer, sets it on the cluttered desk nearby “that’s what i thought. beer?” sol motions grandly to the mini-fridge, opens it again, and pulls out two more bottles. pops the tops off of them. hands one to max.

“i hate you. you’re the worst.”

“you’re going to have more worries than shit like this if you harm one damn hair on merril’s head,” sol says, bland and crystal clear in the way that she arches an eyebrow towards max. “it doesn’t escape me that she’s still dead set on you. and you feel the same way. might as well give you the talk now.”

“fuck you, sol,” max hisses.

“save that for merril.”

sol smiles, starts to drain the beer, and basks in contentment at max’s rage and the fact that her sister was there, in the flesh, in the same room.

even if shit had gone south on the station, maybe things would turn out better in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'good grief' by dessa
> 
> find me at the ftl discord. or yell at me here. idk


End file.
